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Phebe Anna Thorne School Settles into New Building

October 31, 2019
Phebe Anna Thorne School Teacher Stacy Helmers with a student at the new facility.

The Phebe Anna Thorne School of Bryn Mawr College provides play-based, developmentally appropriate child-centered programs for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.

Established in 1952, the Thorne School also provides excellent learning opportunities for Bryn Mawr students interested in education, psychology, and social work. There are also opportunities for students to get jobs as classroom aides in the school. 

As a lab school, the Thorne School serves as a site of undergraduate research in areas such as language acquisition and cognition. It also serves as a fieldwork site of Praxis courses and provides valuable real-world experience for students looking into a career in education. This semester there are 25 undergraduate students working at the school as paid classroom assistants and many more engaged with the school as part of a Praxis class, doing observations for class assignments, or in some other way.

After many years at West House, which is located on the corner of Wyndon Avenue and North Roberts Road, the Thorne School Toddler and Pre-School programs have a new home at Little West House, located just across the parking lot from the previous location.

"West House certainly had a lot of charm but this new and updated space provides us with much greater flexibility and accessibility," says Amanda Ulrich, Director of the Phebe Anna Thorne School.

The new space includes three modern, beautifully lit classroom spaces to accommodate toddler and preschool classes, plus a kitchen, a lobby, bathrooms in each classroom, and office space.


The Phebe Anna Thorne School is a laboratory preschool and Kindergarten at Bryn Mawr College. The school's mission is to provide play-based, developmentally appropriate, child-centered programs for toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners. The School serves children and their families from the Bryn Mawr College campus community as well as from the local residential community.

They offer toddler, preschool and kindergarten programs at a reduced rate for College families. The toddler and preshool programs are located on the Bryn Mawr Campus and the Kindergarten Center is located on the campus of Haverford College.

Phebe Anna Thorne School

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